I'm back, baby!

The little publicized Bone blogging hiatus is officially over, at nineteen days. To put that into persepctive historically speaking, it's longer than the Cuban Missile Crisis, but slightly shorter than the marriage of Lisa Marie and Nicolas Cage. Also, it has received slightly less publicity than the Mike Gravel Presidential campaign, but slightly more than the latest Carrot Top DVD.

So why come back now? Why today? Maybe it's because today is Mardi Gras, Fat Tuesday. Perhaps I was reminded of my own ill-fated trip to the Mardi Gras in 2001 and that inspired me to write.

Maybe it was the guilt of having received three Excellence In Blogging awards (thanks Sage, Gautami, and Marcia) in the past few days, yet not having blogged in almost three weeks.

Maybe it had something to do with the secretary at work making it a point to tell me the actress who played Amy Vining on General Hospital had passed away. And three other people emailing to tell me the same news. Really people, am I the biggest GH fan any of you know? On second thought, don't answer that.

Or maybe there is no reason. Maybe it's just one of those great mysteries of life. A question that has no answer. Such as, why is there no other word for synonym? Why don't they make mouse-flavored cat food? Why did John Waite only have that one song? And what is the point of that football robot thing Fox shows on the NFL games?

I apologize for the extended hiatus. Honestly, I think my case of the Januarys just lasted a little longer this year than it usually does. For about two weeks, all I wanted to do was come home in the afternoon, climb into bed and watch TV. OK, so that's always what I want to do, but for about two weeks, I actually did it.

I hate being down. I've always felt like I'm the one who is supposed to be up. With friends, I always feel like I'm the one who's supposed to entertain and make people laugh. In school, I was the one who winked at the dark, mysterious Spanish teacher, and later became Spanish Club President.

Thankfully, I do feel like I'm emerging from these winter doldrums. Possibly because it's 10:00 at night, it's February, and it's 70 degrees outside.

So what have I been up to, other than working and lying in bed? Let's see, I caught a nasty stomach bug for a couple of days last week and lost eight pounds with the on-your-knees-clinging-to-the-toilet-seat diet. After that, I walked around all light-headed and dizzy for a day or two. That was pretty cool.

I also watched Stroker Ace one night on CMT. (Wow, I can't believe I just admitted that. I must still be light-headed.) All you need to know is it stars Burt Reynolds and Loni Anderson. If that doesn't scream cinematic magic, I don't know what does. Oh, and there's also a rousing performance by the incomparable Jim Nabors in a supporting actor role.

This weekend, I downloaded seventeen songs, as I continue to use up the three iTunes gift cards I received for Christmas. The new downloads include Adam Sandler's Chanukah and Thanksgiving songs, "Puttin' On The Ritz" by Taco, "Tricky Tricky" by Lou Bega, "Who's Johnny" by DeBarge, and "All My Life" by the vastly underrated R&B duo K-Ci & JoJo.

Thanks for the emails and IM's and comments checking on me. One thing I was reminded of during this hiatus is that we do make actual friends doing this blogging thing. I've missed you guys. I'm looking forward to catching up with all of you and returning to writing about all the insignificant things in life.

"I ain't missing you at all, since you've been gone away. I ain't missing you, no matter what my friends say..."